Penance
by TheFictionalMe
Summary: When Scott makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect his friends and save their parents from the Darach, Stiles and Allison and the rest of their rag-tag pack refuse to let him go...even if it means sacrificing themselves in order to bring him back. Season 3 AU of 3x11 Alpha Pact, lots of friendship feels, ANGST.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey hey! So, I watched Season 1 of Teen Wolf wayyyy back when it came out and loved it...and then never kept up with it. Of course, recently I saw a commercial stating "Final Season of Teen Wolf"...and then proceeded to binge watch all of the seasons up through 6A to catch up (and WHOA, has a lot gone down since S1)!**

 **And thus, here is my first foray into Teen Wolf fic, with my new found inspiration, about one of my favorite eps (seriously who doesn't love Season 3). Please forgive my poor imagination with Druid workings or the true alpha timeline not being exact, and let me know your thoughts!**

 **Happy reading!**

 **Fictional**

* * *

It seemed like the only choice.

Going with Deucalion _was_ the only choice.

As he followed behind the older alpha, Scott couldn't help but wonder how things had gotten to this point, to the point he had to side with the enemy in order to save his Mom, the Sheriff, and Argent.

Their _parents_.

But at this point, Scott knew he would do whatever it took to bring their parents back safe and sound.

And _alive_.

He had promised Stiles he would find them, his painful pleas on the hospital rooftop for him not to go with Deucalion still ringing in his ears.

" _Scott, don't do this. Don't go with him_!"

At the very least, Scott knew he couldn't stop Jennifer alone, and he knew that his best chances relied on the alpha pack helping him take her down.

He tried not think too much about what the pack would want in return, but he'd worry about that later. When their parents were safe, and the sacrifices were over, and Jennifer had finally been stopped... _then_ he would worry about it.

One problem at a time.

As if Deucalion could sense his thoughts, the alpha paused suddenly, turning back to face him in the middle of the dark street.

"Don't worry Scott, my intentions are truly for the right cause, I assure you," he said smoothly, and Scott did his best to bite back the retort waiting on his tongue at that. "We want the same thing, which is to stop Jennifer. Don't lose sight of what's at stake."

Scott forced a smile as he replied. "Yea, I know. That's why I came with you."

Deucalion smirked behind his dark glasses, before turning back around, motioning for Scott to keep following him. "I can smell the worry rolling off of you."

Scott swallowed thickly as he continued behind him, realizing that with Deucalion's blindness, his sense of smell was even _more_ superpowered than the average werewolf, and he hadn't been able to hide his emotions from him at all.

"Oh, uh, it's not that," Scott quickly bit out, before taking a short breath to steady himself and try not sound even _more_ nervous. "I'm just worried about my mom. And Stiles' father. And Allison's."

Deucalion nodded slowly, not bothering to face the young werewolf again as he spoke. "Understandable. But I promise you Scott, if you help me end Jennifer, you will see all of your parents again."

Scott opened his mouth to reply, to reassure Deucalion of his new allegiance, but he never got the chance.

A blinding light suddenly landed between him and Deucalion, and his mind registered just a little too late that it was a flash bomb.

"Scott, your eyes!" Deucalion bellowed in warning, his glasses suddenly off and his blind eyes replaced by an angry alpha red as he sought out their new enemy.

But Scott was too distracted, too focused on worry for his mom and the others, so much so that his reaction time was just slow enough that he couldn't cover his eyes in time.

He stumbled backwards as the flash bomb exploded, blinding him painfully and causing him to nearly fall to the ground.

He heard Deucalion roar furiously and take off in the general direction of their attacker, but Scott felt no inclination to follow him, and scrambled to find his footing as he stumbled into a darkened alley out of harm's way.

He blinked furiously, trying to regain his vision, and just as it was coming back into focus, he heard someone coming up behind him.

He wheeled around to face his attacker, claws and fangs already out as his eyes slowly cleared, but he paused as a familiar voiced reached him from the dark figure approaching.

"If you want to see your mom and your friends' parents alive again, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

 _Jennifer_.

She emerged from the shadows, a knowing smirk on her face as Scott's vision finally returned. "Taking up with Deucalion, huh? Must be really desperate if you've stooped to his level."

Scott scoffed, barely able to hold himself back from going full wolf at her presence. "Yea, well, you sort of forced me to when you took our parents as _sacrifices_."

Jennifer nodded, still smirking, as she slowly moved closer to him. "I guess that's true. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Just tell me where our parents are, and I'll call off Deucalion and the alpha pack," Scott gritted out, clenching his hands tightly into fists, blood dripping steadily from around his claws in vain effort to keep from shifting. "I swear."

Jennifer laughed, a cruel sound that echoed through the dark alley. "As if you had the power to do that. You couldn't stop them if you wanted to."

"Then what do you want?" Scott narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are you even here?"

"Great question, Scott," Jennifer retorted, eyeing him carefully. "Maybe the only great question you have asked the entire time you were my student." She came closer, arms crossed, and stopped directly in front of him.

"I have a deal for you, actually."

Scott looked back at her in confusion. "A deal? What kind of deal? All I want is to get my mom, and the others back."

"And if you agree to this, then you will," Jennifer replied, almost soothingly, but there was a sinister tone to her voice that gave Scott an involuntarily chill.

He shuddered, before replying, "Ok, I'll do anything you want, just as long as you don't hurt them. That you let them go."

"Well Scott, I'm glad to hear you say that," Jennifer was staring him directly in the eyes now, "because you will really have to be willing to do _anything_ in order to get them back."

Scott didn't know where she was going with this, and he had a feeling he wasn't going to like it...but it didn't matter. Nothing else mattered but saving them, and time was almost up.

"Just tell me what you want. I'll do it, if it saves them."

"Scott, Scott, Scott, always the hero, the caring friend, the fearless leader," Jennifer was mocking him now, walking around him in a deliberately slow circle, making him feel like a vulnerable piece of prey. "That's how I knew you would be perfect for this, why I set up this distraction for Deucalion just long enough so that we could have this little talk, and I could offer you another way to save your precious parents."

Scott was breathing heavily now as she walked behind him, trying his best to reign in control as the angry wolf itched under his skin, aching to get out and fight against the enemy, to save the ones he loved. "Just tell me."

She was suddenly face to face with him again, and he fought down the urge to move back at her sudden closeness. "I want _you_ , Scott. You in place of all of your parents."

Scott frowned in surprise, trying to follow her crazed reasoning. "You want me? In place of all of them?"

"Yes," she sneered, looking at him just like a predator sizing up its prey, "you are the perfect substitute sacrifice for all three of them."

She paused, looking back at him for dramatic effect. "You are a True Alpha after all, Scott, whether you've realized that yet or not. And I know you've already figured out that I need a guardian for the last sacrifice, and who else is a better guardian of Beacon Hills than you? At the very least you're a guardian over your little pack or whatever you call them. So rare, so moral, so damn _perfect_ ," she spat out, "that you alone can complete the ritual and help me defeat Deucalion before anyone sees it coming. Since I'm on a bit of a deadline, it's definitely more beneficial for me to have just one sacrifice to complete instead of three."

She laughed, almost manic with this final revelation, "besides, with the power of a True Alpha added to the Nemeton, I will be unstoppable."

Scott swallowed thickly, realizing what she was offering him.

His life, for theirs. He would be the sacrifice instead.

"Ok," Scott replied, desperately trying to hide the shakiness of his voice, "if I do this, if I agree to be the sacrifice for them, then you'll let all of our parents go?"

"Exactly," Jennifer agreed with a sneer. "You, for them. Otherwise, you might as well consider them dead now, because you'll _never_ find them in time."

Scott knew it was true. They were running out of time, and no one knew how to find the Nemeton except for Argent...and he wasn't currently available.

"So, once you have all this power," he questioned her slowly, trying to figure out her endgame, "what then? Will you leave Beacon Hills or will you stay here and destroy everything I care about when I'm no longer around to protect it?"

"Please Scott," she scoffed, rolling her eyes, "I have no interest in hanging around this boring old town after the Nemeton has served its purpose. As soon as I kill Deucalion and every last one of his mindless mutts, I'm out of here." She paused, raising her eyebrows in amusement at him. "I already know you're listening to my heartbeat Scott, so what does it tell you?"

He sighed in defeat. "That you're telling the truth."

"Good," Jennifer nodded, "so you can also tell I'm telling the truth about letting your mother and the others go in exchange for you. I won't hurt them if you agree to be the sacrifice."

Although her heartbeat was still steady, Scott didn't know if he could trust her to follow through after he agreed to her demands. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Maybe. But how do I really know you'll hold up your end of the bargain after I agree to this?"

"Give me your hand," Jennifer demanded, and Scott hesitantly did as she asked, although every wolf instinct inside him screamed against it.

He fought the overwhelming urge to pull back as she withdrew a long silver blade, almost medieval looking in appearance, with an unreadable ancient inscription etched along the side.

"We'll make a blood oath," she declared, holding the blade to his palm but not yet cutting. "If you agree to be the sacrifice, the blood oath will hold you to your word, and me to mine. Even if you don't show up when I tell you to, you'll die anyways, and then I'll just kill your parents instead like I planned." She paused, almost gently pressing the sharp edge against his skin. "And the same goes for me if I don't follow through on my end of the deal. As I'm sure your friend Dr. Deaton has told you, the mystical workings of a druid isn't something to take lightly."

Scott nodded, knowing at least that much was true. Jennifer went to move the knife, but Scott stopped her, grabbing her hand with the blade in a tight grip.

"Wait, will I get to see them? To make sure they're ok?" he asked, holding her gaze steadily, showing her that he wasn't afraid. "I won't do this until I know that they're all safe."

"Of course, Scott, that's my end of the bargain," Jennifer almost sounded kind around the evil lacing her words, "you'll get the chance to see them and anyone else you wish one more time, before you meet me at the Nemeton tomorrow night."

She looked back down at the blade pressed against his hand. "Although, I have to warn you about telling any of them about our deal. If anyone interrupts the sacrifice by trying to save you, then our deal is off, and I'll make sure to come back for the rest of them. Regardless of what you do in this situation, Scott, once we make this oath, you _will_ die, no matter what. Might as well make sure it's for the right purpose."

She looked back up at him squarely, her voice quietly lethal as she spoke. "Do we have a deal?"

Scott sighed heavily, knowing there was no other choice. He would do anything to save his mom, and he would do anything to save the lives of his friends' parents, and he really didn't see another way out. He just hoped everyone would understand that there wasn't another way. There wasn't a plan B.

Not this time.

He would die so that they would all live, and he was surprisingly ok with that.

He nodded once, squaring his shoulders firmly as he looked back at her, trying to appear braver than he felt.

"Deal."

At his words, Jennifer grinned up at him sadistically, before cutting sharply deep down into his palm without warning. He bit back a groan in surprise as pain flooded his hand, but before his healing process could even kick in, Jennifer withdrew a glass bottle and poured some kind of powdery mixture into the wound.

He hissed in pain as the concoction burned and bubbled in his bleeding hand, before she quickly turned his palm sideways and drained some of his blood with the strange mixture back into the bottle. Moments later, she did the same thing to her own hand, slicing without hesitation into her pale skin and sprinkling more of the same substance, barely even making a sound. She drained some of her own blood into the bottle, mixing with his own. After a minute, she stepped back and closed the bottle, placing it carefully in her coat.

"It's done. Meet me right before midnight tomorrow at the Nemeton. And make sure you come alone."

"How will I find it?" Scott asked thickly, holding his hand as the wound slowly healed closed. For someone who had just willingly signed his own death warrant, he felt strangely light. Relieved even.

At least his mom would be safe. And Stiles and Allison wouldn't lose yet _another_ parent, wouldn't become orphans at such a young age.

"Because you can _see_ it now," Jennifer replied coolly. "So go. Free them. And make sure you aren't late tomorrow."

Scott nodded shortly at her, ignoring the heaviness settling over his shoulders at her words. "I'll be there."

"Good," she smirked, unable to contain her sadistic glee at the prospect of gaining all his power.

And with that, she disappeared back into the shadows, away from sight.

Scott froze in the alley, looking at his now healed hand and knowing without a doubt he had done what had to be done, swallowing down a wave of sadness that he now only had about 24 hours left to live.

 _It's for them though_ , he reminded himself. _It's all worth it_.

In the next moment, and he wasn't entirely sure _how_ he knew, but he suddenly _knew_ where to find the Nemeton.

He took off in a dead sprint in the direction of the woods, frantically digging for his phone to call Stiles as he weaved rapidly between the trees.

" _Scott, man, are you ok? Are you still with Deucalion? What's going on?_ " Stiles' voice was both a mixture of panicked and relieved as he heard Scott's breathless voice over the phone.

"Stiles, I found it!" Scott replied as he ran, nearly toppling to the forest floor as he slipped on some damp leaves, "I know where they are!"

" _Wait, our parents?! Scott, where are you?"_

Scott paused as he suddenly came to a stop in the darkness of the woods, staring at the large stump that was now directly in front of him.

"I found the Nemeton."

* * *

 **TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for the delay! And thank you SO much to SamReid, Guest, Fanofeverything101, and GFM for your reviews, it's honestly what got me moving to continue this! And thanks to everyone else who favorited/followed for all the love.**

 **So, this chapter is looong, and the angst level is about to ramp up,** _ **and**_ **there's a cliffy at the end of this one...**

 **Hang on!**

 **Fictional**

* * *

After he found the Nemeton, everything to Scott was a blur.

He could clearly recall the relieved look on his mother's face, and Sheriff Stilinski's exclamation of "Thank God!", in addition to Argent's muttered "About time," as he burst into the root cellar under the Nemeton and freed them from their bindings.

Then Stiles and Allison arrived, along with Lydia, Isaac, and Deaton in tow, and the overjoyed looks in his friends' faces as they hugged their parents reassured him that he had done the right thing.

Receiving a tight hug from his own mom, Scott _knew_ he had done the right thing. Whether or not they understood it later...but by then it would be too late. He would be Jennifer's sacrifice instead, and there wouldn't be anything they could do to stop him.

But it was what he had to do.

"Dude, I can't believe you really found them," Stiles was suddenly standing in front of him, relieved tears in his eyes to have his Dad back, and Scott didn't hesitate to squeeze him tightly back when Stiles pulled him into a grateful hug.

He had definitely made the right choice.

* * *

Scott slept fitfully that night, repeatedly getting up to make sure that his mom was really ok. She was still there, sleeping soundly in her bedroom, exhausted from her ordeal with Jennifer. He returned to his own bed, tossing and turning as he tried not to think about what the coming night would bring.

At least he would get the chance to say goodbye, even if the others wouldn't know that's what it was.

He finally awoke the next afternoon, internally swearing at himself for wasting away what little time he had left. He threw on a t-shirt and sweatpants, before making his way downstairs to find his mom cooking a late breakfast, already dressed in her scrubs.

"Hey there, I figured the smell of food would get you up," she smiled knowingly, putting a plate in front of him on the kitchen table. He could see through her smile at the lines of tiredness and fear that she was desperately trying to hide from her ordeal as a near-sacrifice.

Scott didn't even want to think about what his self-sacrifice was going to do to her, but he couldn't think about that now.

She was alive, and she was safe. And Scott had _no_ regrets about that.

He shook his head to clear his dark thoughts as he smiled back when his mom piled some steaming eggs and bacon on his plate, before frowning as he examined her attire more closely.

"Wait, mom, are you going to work?" he asked in confusion as he looked at her scrubs.

Melissa nodded at him, turning back to grab the pan off the stove and scoop eggs onto her own plate. "Yes I am, I have the night shift tonight."

"But don't you think you should take the day off," Scott protested, "after, you know, what happened last night?"

Melissa pursed her lips as she looked back at him thoughtfully. "Well, to be honest, I thought about it, but if I took a day off every time something supernatural related happened to me nowadays, I'd probably be out of a job."

Scott's shoulders slumped at his mom's words, even though she hadn't meant them that way. He couldn't help but feel responsible for all the terrible things that had happened to her since he had become a werewolf and she had been dragged into this mess along with him.

 _At least she won't have to worry about that anymore_ , he bitterly reminded himself. At least not after tonight.

Melissa must have seen the fallen look on his face because she quickly backtracked, coming over to place her hand over his hand on the table.

"I'm sorry honey, I didn't mean it to sound like that," she sighed, looking at him seriously. "But I can't just sit here at home, thinking about what happened, or waiting for the next creature to attack. We have to keep living our lives, Scott. We have to keep going, no matter what comes our way. Otherwise, that's letting all the evil out there win, and I'm not about to sit back and let that happen, ok? And either can you."

He nodded slowly, giving her a small smile in return. "I know, Mom, and you're right. We can't just sit here waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I just," he paused, his throat constricting as he was suddenly overcome with emotions, "I was just so worried I was going to lose you, that you were going to die, and that it was going to be all _my_ fault."

"Oh Scott," Melissa smiled sadly at him, squeezing his hand even more tightly as she reached her free hand across to firmly cup his chin, "I want you to look at me. This whole thing, that insane woman, us being kidnapped, was _not_ your fault. Do you understand me?"

Scott nodded again, blinking back tears and hating himself for seeming so weak in front of his mom. He was supposed to be the strong one, the protector, but there were times when he was still just a teenage boy who needed his mother.

"I'm just really glad you're ok," Scott rasped out, and before he knew what was happening, he had made his way around the kitchen table and pulled his mom into a tight hug, burying his face in her shoulder.

"Hey hey hey, it's ok, I'm ok, we're all ok," Melissa soothed, clearly taken aback at his sudden display of emotion. Tears sprang to her eyes to see him like this, wrapping her arms tightly around her son. "We're all ok, baby, thanks to you."

Scott nodded against her shoulder, before pulling back, wiping at his wet eyes. "Are you sure you have to work tonight?" He let out a small laugh, as his mom wiped her own suddenly misty eyes.

"Unfortunately, yes," Melissa nodded, taking a deep breath to pull herself back together. "They really need me tonight." She paused, looking at him carefully. "Are you sure you'll be ok tonight? That crazy Jennifer is still out there, and so are those Alphas..."

"I'll be fine, Mom," Scott offered her a wan smile, "promise."

She looked at him skeptically, not really believing him, but sighed knowing that he would deny it even if he wasn't. "Well, even so, don't be alone tonight. All of us will be safer being with others, and in public even for that matter."

"Yeah, uh, I'm gonna head over to Stiles' house with everyone else in a little bit," Scott quickly reassured her. "We're going to try and figure out what Jennifer's next move is, now that the sacrifice was ruined."

Melissa looked at him wryly. "Yeah, since us parents had the audacity to not be her sacrifices. But promise me, Scott, that you guys will be careful, that you're not going to go hunting her down in the middle of the night again."

"We won't," Scott replied softly, squeezing her shoulder in reassurance, wishing he didn't have to lie to her. He paused, searching for the right words to say. "I'm just really glad you're ok. I don't know what I would have done if..." he trailed off, unable to finish, but his mom knew exactly what he meant.

Melissa smiled softly back at him. "Well I'm glad you didn't have to find out, kiddo. It would take more than a homicidal druid on a power trip to keep me away from my only son."

Scott couldn't hold back a chuckle at that, knowing firsthand how feisty his mother was. She would never go down without a fight.

He just hoped she stayed that way after he was gone, that his death didn't completely break her, that she would be able to understand why he had done what he'd done.

He hoped she could forgive him one day for doing this.

"Well sweetheart," she sighed, looking at her watch, "I really have to get going to work."

"Do you have to?" Scott asked, suddenly somber again, as he realized this was going to be the last time he saw her.

He wasn't ready to say goodbye.

"Yes, I have to," Melissa replied, more reluctantly than before as she looked at her son, sensing something else was wrong but not entirely sure what.

"I was just hoping we could spend some time together tonight," Scott said wistfully, shoving his hands in his pants pockets as he looked at the floor.

"And Scott, I would love that, but just not tonight, ok?" Melissa said over her shoulder as she grabbed her purse. "But next week I'm actually off a few days, for once, so we can spend time together then. Sit down and actually have dinner together like a real family, sound good?"

"Yeah," Scott swallowed thickly at that, knowing they would never get the chance, but forced a smile in return, "that sounds good."

"Good," she smiled back as she dug for her keys, and she was completely unprepared when he stepped forwards and hugged her once again, even tighter than before.

"Mom, just, I wanted to say before you go," Scott took in a deep breath to keep his voice steady, "that I love you, and you've been the best mom ever, and thank you for being there for me, especially through all of this."

Melissa froze at his words, before squeezing him tightly back. "Of course, sweetheart. I love you, no matter what." After a moment, she pulled back, still hesitating at leaving when he seemed so upset, and wondering if she should even leave at all. "Are you sure you're ok? Maybe I can get someone to cover my shift..."

Scott sighed, forcing another smile on his face. "Mom, I'm ok. Really. Go to work, I'll be fine."

"Ok...if you're sure," Melissa was still hesitant, pausing by the door to look back at him. "We'll talk more tomorrow, ok?"

Scott nodded slowly at that. "Ok."

With one last concerned look at him, Melissa opened the door, and then she was gone.

Scott couldn't help the lone tear that escaped and rolled down his cheek as she shut the door behind her.

 _Goodbye, Mom. I'm sorry_.

* * *

"Scott. Hey Scott, are you listening? Yo, Scotty!"

"Huh?" Scott suddenly came back to the present, realizing that Stiles had been calling his name for the last few minutes, as everyone else in Stiles' bedroom stared at him expectantly from where he sat in the corner.

"Yeah, sorry," Scott gave them all a sheepish smile. "Uh, what was the question?"

Stiles gave an exasperated sigh as he moved back towards his crime board. "We were asking what you thought Jennifer's next move would be. You know, since you were the one who actually found the Nemeton and all that, after you ditched Deucalion."

"Oh, uh, I'm not sure," Scott shook his head, desperately forcing his heartbeat to stay steady over the lie, especially since Isaac was staring at him curiously from where he and Allison sat perched side by side on Stiles' bed. Lydia was studying him too from where she stood next to Stiles, lips pursed in deep thought.

"Well, I don't think she's going to come after our parents again, since she's already failed, and especially not now that they're prepared for it," Allison offered when Scott didn't add anything else, silently chastising himself for not covering better in front of his friends and simultaneously thanking her for taking the heat off of him.

They couldn't figure out what he was going to do tonight, not if he wanted to keep them all safe.

"But that doesn't mean she won't try and go after somebody else, or three actually, for that matter," Lydia added. "I don't think she'll just give up that easily."

"Especially when tonight is the last night for her to complete the whole sacrificial ritual thing," Stiles nodded, frowning as he looked at everything they had already added to the board without finding any answers. "The question is who, and how do we stop her?"

"We don't," Scott said quietly, causing them to all look back at him once again, this time in surprise.

"Well _that_ doesn't really seem like the normal plan," Isaac looked at him quizzically.

"Yeah man," Stiles narrowed his eyes and Scott suddenly felt uncomfortable under his scrutinizing gaze, "that's not at _all_ what you would normally say, I mean _ever_."

Scott quickly realized that he was failing, and failing badly, from keeping his friends from eventually figuring out about the deal he had made with Jennifer. He stood up suddenly from the chair, racking his brain quickly for a way to throw the growing suspicion off of him.

"No, what I mean is," he walked into the middle of the room so he could face all of his friends, "is that it's too late for her to complete all three sacrifices by tonight. There's only a few hours left, and the Alpha Pack is really close to finding her, especially since the lunar eclipse is tonight and they will be powerless against her then. At least that's what Derek told me."

"That's true," Allison nodded in agreement to this information, "during the eclipse, all of you will lose your powers, and basically be human again. But that will give Jennifer the advantage, and a pretty big one at that."

"Not unless they find her first," Isaac shrugged. "We'll just have to hope that they find her before the eclipse tonight."

"Or that she's so busy running from them right now, she won't have a chance to complete three more sacrifices," Lydia crossed her arms over her chest.

"Either way," Scott continued, looking at them all seriously, "we stay out of it this time. We don't need anyone else getting hurt."

"Hopefully they'll just take each other out, problem solved," Stiles said nonchalantly as he stuck another pin back on the board, trying to hold up a falling piece of red string.

Scott sighed at that, knowing he would normally hate that possibility, but knowing that after what happened to him tonight, it really wouldn't matter. "Maybe. At least it will keep anyone else from becoming a sacrifice."

 _Except for me_ , he thought silently, but quickly pushed the thoughts from his head.

"So, let me get this straight," Stiles turned back from the board to face him, suspicion etched on his face, "you don't want to do anything about the Darach or the Alphas then?"

He felt four sets of eyes staring at him expectantly, and he swallowed thickly, before shaking his head. "No, not tonight at least."

"You want us to just sit back and wait to see what happens?" Allison's voice was full of doubt.

"Uh, you sure you're feeling ok?" Isaac added skeptically.

He knew it was because he never just sat back and let anyone get hurt, he was always somehow in the middle of everything evil or supernatural that went on in Beacon Hills, and typically dragging the rest of his rag-tag pack with him.

"Well, you said it yourself Stiles," Scott replied, forcing himself to sound as casual as possible, "your Dad hasn't reported any missing persons yet tonight, and Jennifer is almost out of time anyways."

"That's true," Stiles shrugged, but he didn't sound convinced. "But that doesn't mean that something still won't happen between now and midnight."

"Look guys," Scott gestured with his hands, trying to reign in his growing emotions and failing, "we just got our parents back after almost losing them to the Darach sacrifice, and right now keeping them and all of us out of harm's way is all I can really think about. We almost _didn't_ get them back, and all I want is to keep them and all of you safe! Which means staying out of this right now, ok?"

There was a long heavy silence in the room between all of them, before Lydia finally broke it with a sympathetic smile.

"Ok," she said softly. "I can't say I disagree with you there. Maybe it is better if we just stay out of whatever happens tonight. We already had a pretty close call with losing people we care about."

"If that's what you want," Isaac added quietly in agreement. "Then that's what we'll do."

"That's what I want," Scott replied with a deep sigh, making eye contact with each of them and forcing himself to calm down as his emotions started to get the better of him.

Everyone nodded quietly at that, accepting his choice, believing almost losing their parents had been the final straw...but Scott could tell that they were still skeptical of him not wanting to get involved, especially when someone else was potentially at risk of becoming a sacrifice.

Feeling the growing tension in the room and knowing it was because he wasn't formulating some dramatic plan to stop Jennifer and rally them all into another face-off with her, Scott suddenly excused himself from the room.

"Uh, I need a drink of water. Anyone else?"

A chorus of "no's" and "I'm good's" followed him out of the room as he headed towards Stiles' kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief that he was away from their scrutiny, at least for a minute. He just had to keep their suspicions at bay for a few more hours.

Only a few more hours until he was...

"Scott? Are you ok?"

Allison's voice behind him startled him out of his thoughts, and he whirled around to see her standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking at him with concern etched all over her face. He was so preoccupied that he hadn't even sensed her come up behind him.

"Me?" He tried to feign surprise at her question. "Yeah, Allison, of course. Why?"

She frowned, watching him carefully, stepping closer until she was directly in front of him. "I don't know, you just seem...like something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Scott replied a little too quickly, before realizing that he had to get this under control if he didn't want her to figure it out.

After all, and even though they were broken up now...next to Stiles, Allison knew him better than anyone.

It didn't help that he still loved her, not that he would ever admit it. She seemed happy now, and it looked like her and Isaac were starting something together, and as much as that thought _killed_ him, all he had ever really wanted was for her to be happy.

"Why do you think something's wrong?" he suddenly turned the question around on her, slapping on one of his most charming smiles in an effort to throw her off.

"Well," Allison shook her head, suddenly seeming uncomfortable under his gaze. "Something just seems off, and I," she paused, "I still care about you, Scott. If something is wrong, you can tell me, I mean, tell us," she quickly corrected herself, looking away from him for a moment.

Scott couldn't help the little skip of his heart at Allison's words, and he was silently grateful she didn't have his werewolf hearing to catch it. "I care about you too, Allison," he reached over and hesitantly squeezed her hand, causing her eyes to dart back to his face in surprise, "all of you. Which is why I'm doing everything I can to keep you all safe from this."

Allison bit her lip as she studied his face carefully. "I know that Scott, but why don't you want to go after Jennifer tonight, in case there's another sacrifice? Or try and stop the Alphas? It just doesn't seem like... _you_ ," she emphasized, giving him a knowing look. "You care _so_ much, and I've never once seen you just sit on the sidelines with something like this happening, not if you thought there was a way you could stop it, and keep someone else from getting hurt."

"Allison," he replied softly, and they were even closer now, face to face, and he could hear her heartbeat skyrocket at their proximity, "this _is_ what I'm doing, to keep everyone safe. This is the only way I know _how_ to right now. Every choice I've ever made is to keep all of you from getting hurt, to protect everyone I care about, I hope you know that."

He hoped that she would remember these exact words after he sacrificed himself, knowing that she would rehash and analyze and pull apart this last conversation over and over...after it was too late.

Allison flinched at his words, as if she should have realized that about him, knowing him as she did. "I _do_ know that, Scott. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that."

"No, Allison, it's ok," he smiled easily, quickly reassuring her with another squeeze of her hand. "I get why it seems weird for me not to be doing something, but I think this is the best way to protect all of us right now."

"Ok," she smiled back, squeezing his hand in return. "As long as you're sure nothing's wrong."

"I'm sure," Scott nodded, before dropping her hand. He paused, realizing with a sharp pang in his heart that this would be the last time he saw her, the last time it would just be him and Allison talking in a room together, and he had to make sure she knew how important she still was to him.

"Thanks for worrying about me, though," he continued quietly, leaning back against the counter to look at her gratefully, "that means a lot."

"Of course, Scott," Allison gave him a quizzical look. "I'll always worry about you. We're still friends, after all."

"Yeah," Scott snorted, looking at the floor for a long moment before looking back up at her, "friends."

She narrowed her eyes at his change of tone, trying to figure out what exactly he meant by that, before he interrupted her train of thought.

"It's ok."

Allison's eyes grew wide at the question. "What? What's ok?"

"Isaac," Scott looked at her steadily. "You and Isaac. It's ok."

"Seriously Scott? I don't know what you're getting at," she was flustered now, crossing her arms over her chest defensively and shaking her head, "but Isaac and I, we aren't together."

"You care about him, though," Scott continued, but it was without malice or anger, just resigned acceptance. "A lot."

"No, no, Scott, it isn't like that," Allison was still desperately trying to convince him otherwise, but he could see the wheels turning in her head, the startling realization just hitting her now about her growing feelings for the other werewolf, "it's different, it's not how you and me were, it's not the same thing..."

"Allison," Scott stopped her rambling with a small smile, "it's ok. Really."

Allison stared at him for a long moment, as if deciding if he was telling the truth or not, deciding if she really had feelings for Isaac or not.

Scott took a deep breath before continuing, knowing he had to say this to her now, because he couldn't willingly die if she didn't know.

"You were the first girl I ever loved, Allison," he said softly, watching her tough facade start to crumble at his words, "and a part of me still does love you. But all I've ever wanted is for you to be happy, so if that's with Issac, if that's not with me...then I'm ok with it."

"...really?" she finally rasped out, looking at a complete loss for words as she looked back at him.

"Really," he lied with a small smile, wanting to make sure she was left in peace after this, not wanting his final words to haunt her.

After all, she might need Isaac more than ever after he died, and he wanted to make sure she wasn't alone. She had already lost so many people in her life, and her dad wasn't always around, so he had to know that someone else would be there to look after her...even though he knew firsthand how tough she was, how she could take care of herself.

It still made him feel better knowing that Isaac would be there for her.

That maybe she could move on after he was gone.

* * *

"So," Lydia mused, turning back towards Stiles with her hands on her hips, "what do you think is up with Scott?"

"I don't know," Stiles frowned in reply as he finished hanging one last piece of string on the board. "But I intend to find out. Scott is a terrible liar, at least when it comes to me."

"Did you guys ever think," Isaac chimed in from where he was casually sprawled on Stiles' bed now, "that maybe almost losing his mom and all your parents freaked him out so much that he just wants to stay out of this whole mess?"

"Well, thank you very much for your astute observation as always Isaac," Stiles groused in irritation, "but you don't know Scott like I do. Even if he did feel that way after everything that happened, he wouldn't just stand by when people are still in danger."

"But he might," Isaac sat back up, challenging him. "He might back out if he thought it was safer for all of us."

Lydia raised her eyebrows in amusement as she watched them. It was no secret that Stiles and Isaac often conflicted.

"He might, but he _wouldn't_ , and that's the point," Stiles waved his hands in growing exacerbation.

"Maybe Scott just knows something the rest of us don't," Lydia shrugged casually as she plopped down on the bed next to Isaac. "And he thinks he's protecting us by keeping us out of it."

"I think that's _exactly_ what's going on," Stiles nodded in agreement, putting a hand to his chin as he faced them. "And I intend to find out what it is."

* * *

"Ok, we're going to get going," Allison stood, Isaac standing with her. "Besides, I want to check on my Dad, just in case."

It had been several hours later, and still no reports of missing persons or homicidial druids around Beacon Hills per the Sheriff, so they decided that either Jennifer had given up, or Deucalion and the alpha pack had found her after all.

"Yeah, I'm going to catch a ride with her," Isaac motioned with his head as he followed Allison to the doorway of Stiles' room. Scott didn't miss the way he didn't make eye contact with him as he said it.

"Yeah, ok, I'll see you at home," Scott replied quietly, although he knew that Isaac would likely be at Allison's for a while instead. He tried not to think about what that meant, even though it wouldn't matter anymore anyways.

"Just," Allison hesitated in the doorway, looking back at all of them but her words were directed at Scott, "be careful."

Scott just nodded, unable to find his voice. She gave him one last look before her and Isaac left the room.

"Well, I think the excitement is over for tonight," Lydia stood also then, stretching dramatically. "Doesn't look like anyone else is going to be sacrificied, so I'm going to go too."

She marched towards the doorway after Allison and Isaac, but as she passed by Scott, she stopped suddenly, wheeling to look directly at him.

"What?" Scott said after a few long moments when she didn't say anything, just standing and staring at him intently.

She grabbed his arm with surprising strength, as she kept looking at him. "I...don't know," she finally replied, with genuine confusion. "I just...I don't know."

"Uh, Lydia," Stiles stepped closer, looking back and forth between the two of them with growing concern, "what is it? What's going on?"

She still didn't reply, just looking at Scott intently. He swallowed thickly, wondering in fact if Lydia's new found banshee senses, whatever they all were, were a lot stronger than any of them had realized.

"You're sure you're ok?" she finally asked, refusing to let go of his arm.

"I swear, everything's fine," Scott replied, trying to sound a little irritated at the repeated question. "There's nothing to worry about."

When she still didn't budge, still not believing him, he tried again with a softer tone, reaching up to grab her hand on his arm, gently pulling it away. "You don't have to worry about me. Go home, Lydia."

"Ok," she replied reluctantly, still not totally convinced, but believing him for now. She looked back and forth between Scott and Stiles. "But don't you two go doing anything stupid."

"Us? Do something stupid?" Stiles scoffed with a smirk, "we wouldn't dream of it."

When Lydia turned to give him a hard look, he dropped the smirk immediately. "But I see your point. We won't do anything stupid, alright?"

She arched an eyebrow at him as if contemplating his words, her eyes landing on Scott one last time before she left.

"Good."

* * *

"Well," Stiles turned towards him then, now that it was just the two of them, determined to figure out what was up with his best friend, "what was _that_ all about?"

Scott gave him a nonchalant shrug, shoving his hands in his pockets. "What was what?"

"Don't play dumb with me Scott," Stiles shook his head in mild annoyance. "That whole thing with Lydia just now."

Scott gave him another helpless look. "I don't know Stiles, I don't think _she_ even knows."

"And aren't you just a little bit concerned," he narrowed his eyes at him, his arms flailing wildly, "since whatever her powers are...they all seem to revolve around people dying!"

"We still don't know what exactly her powers are, and she doesn't know how to control them," Scott replied too casually, "so stop trying to read into it, Stiles."

"Ok, ok," he nodded, not ready to let it go, "then what about all this crap about not wanting to go after Jennifer tonight? Or stop the Alpha Pack?"

Scott sighed heavily, sinking down on the bed with a thud. "I already told you why."

"Yeah, that's right, it was already too close a call with our parents," Stiles replied unconvincingly, "but that still doesn't mean you wouldn't try to stop the Darach if you knew more people were going to die. That's not you, Scott! That's not what you do."

"Stiles, I can't let anyone else get hurt," he was exasperated now, giving Stiles a pleading look. "I can't protect everyone, and I can't let anyone I care about die because of me."

"But it's _not_ because of you, Scott," Stiles tried to make him see that all of this wasn't his fault, that no one ever blamed him for the supernatural mess that had become of their lives, "it's the fault of one lunatic Darach and several bloodthirsty Alphas. And you're the only one who can stop them!" He paused, making sure Scott was making eye contact with him before he continued. "Which is why...I don't get why you aren't. I don't get why you're lying to me."

"Stiles, I'm not lying to you!" Scott shot back in protest, but Stiles could see right through it.

"You know what, Scott, I'm actually insulted," he put his hand to his heart in a dramatic gesture. "You actually think that me, your best friend, who knows you better than anyone I might add, who has been through werewolf 101 and everything else this hellhole of a town has sent our way, would actually not be able to tell that you're lying?"

"Stiles," he sighed, running a hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping, "please just let this go."

"Scotty," Stiles tone suddenly softened at the defeated look Scott gave him. He walked over and sat down next to him on the bed, squeezing his shoulder in reassurance. "Look, I may not understand what's going on or what you're not telling me, I'm just worried, man. I may not be a werewolf, or a hunter, or have cool supernatural powers of any kind...but I can still help. Please."

Stiles wasn't prepared for the almost devastated look Scott gave him at his words. "I know that, Stiles...I'm sorry."

"It's ok," Stiles gave him a small smile, squeezing his shoulder again. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, just to make sure it gets through your little werewolf brain...you've got me."

Scott gave him a weak smile in return. "I know that, too. That's why I need you to trust me on this, ok?"

Stiles sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Fine. I'll agree to disagree...which I still disagree strongly I might add...but I'll let it go. For now."

Scott let out a hoarse chuckle, shaking his head. "Thanks."

Stiles snorted at that. "Just don't make me regret it."

There was a long silence when Scott didn't immediate reply, and when Stiles glanced back over at his friend, his concern was only escalated by the look of both sadness and relief on Scott's face.

"You know I still need you, right?" Scott said quietly, looking at his hands that were nervously fidgeting in his lap, not making eye contact with Stiles.

"Yeah, Scott, of course, I think that's been pretty obvious," Stiles tried to joke, but it fell flat in the heavy silence between them. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, continuing with a more serious tone. "And I need you too, you know that."

Scott nodded, still not looking up at him. "I know. But I just want you to know, even since this happened to me, even though I'm faster and stronger and can heal or whatever," he gestured at himself, finally turning to face Stiles again, "I still need your help. I wouldn't have been able to get through any of this without you."

"Yeah, dude, I get it," Stiles frowned in concern, his heart filling with dread that things were even worse than Scott was letting on, although he couldn't figure out for the life of him _what_ was going on, "but you're my best friend. Where else would I be if I wasn't there to drag your ass out of trouble all the time?"

"I just wanted to say," Scott reached over now to squeeze his shoulder this time, "thanks. For always having my back. For being my brother."

Stiles heart skipped a beat as he flashed back to the last time he and Scott had exchanged those words, when Scott had been about to light himself up with a flare all too recently. Stiles had almost lost him for real that time, and he couldn't stomach the thought of losing Scott again.

"Scotty," he tried again, more gently this time, trying to hide his growing panic, "is everything ok? Seriously, what's going on?"

"Everything's ok, Stiles," Scott gave him another small smile. "Everyone is safe now, and that's all that matters...that we go our parents back."

"Yeah. Yeah we did," he replied quietly, only slightly reassured by Scott's words, "and I'll never stop thanking you for that. You found them, man. You saved the day, once again."

"That's because I always have you guys watching my back," Scott gave him a grateful smile this time.

"You know, maybe we should revisit this whole Batman and Robin thing again," Stiles smirked, trying to break the heaviness between them, and was relieved when Scott laughed, a genuine one this time.

"I told you, no one is Batman _or_ Robin."

"That's what you keep saying, but I know that's not true," Stiles shot back, nudging Scott with his elbow playfully, as Scott shoved him back.

"Well, either way," Scott said, standing up from the bed, "I guess I should say thanks then."

Stiles stood up to face him. "If you really want to thank me, convince Lydia that I'm better than that testosterone-filled werejock she's dating."

Scott chuckled as he grabbed his coat. "Yeah, I'm sure that'll work."

"You know," Stiles added suddenly as Scott started to leave, feeling the sudden need to stop him, "why don't you just stay the night? I still haven't beaten level 3 of that new zombie game, and I could really use some back up."

Scott hesitated at his words, looking torn, but shook his head. "Uh, I can't tonight, Stiles."

"Ok," Stiles tried not to sound disappointed, both for less time to drag out of Scott whatever it was that he was hiding and for not being able to beat the game alone, "how about next weekend then? All-night gaming marathon?"

"Yeah, sure, that sounds good," Scott replied, but Stiles couldn't help but notice the distant look in his eyes when he said it.

"Fine, don't stay tonight," Stiles replied, something inside him screaming to make Scott stay but not knowing how, figuring he'd just have to keep working on him later for the truth instead, "if you're _sure_ everything is ok."

"Everything's ok," Scott nodded at him reassuringly. "The Darach is over now, and we don't have to worry about her coming after us or our parents anymore."

"Thank God," Stiles muttered under his breath. "Alright man, if you're sure you don't want to stay over tonight."

"I'm sure," Scott replied quietly, heading for the door of his room.

"Ok, next time then," Stiles held his gaze as Scott still hesitated in the doorway.

"Yeah, next time," Scott echoed, looking back at him steadily with a look Stiles couldn't quite identify.

"Goodbye, Stiles."

"See ya later Scott," Stiles called back, and then he was gone.

Stiles couldn't help but wonder why a sudden shiver of dread crawled down his spine as he left.

* * *

"Good, right on time," Jennifer sneered as she stood next to the massive stump of the Nemeton, the eclipse rising in the sky.

"I told you I would be," Scott replied hollowly as he came to a stop next to the stump, trying not to envision it covered in his blood.

"And I'm guessing that none of your little friends figured out what you were up to tonight," she raised her eyebrows with satisfaction, looking around the clearing for anyone else appearing in the darkness and finding no one.

"No, they didn't," Scott couldn't help the low growl that escaped, "but it wasn't easy. They _all_ knew something was wrong, when I wouldn't come after you again tonight, or the Alpha Pack."

"So what, you could kill _me_?" Jennifer laughed cruelly, pulling out some thick binding ropes. "Boy, did they have this scenario all wrong."

Scott glared at her, a mixture of anger and grief on his face. "I came here to do what you asked. So just do it."

"Well, aren't you a good sacrifice," she scoffed, coming closer to him. "But you're right, we don't have much time. We need to do this during the eclipse."

"Why?" he asked, looking up at the rapidly darkening moon.

"Because," she snapped the ropes tightly in her hands, "then that way you won't be able to heal, and I can kill you faster. It's perfect, actually."

Scott swallowed thickly, as he realized that the last hope he had unconsciously had of somehow surviving this had suddenly been wiped away.

He was really going to die out here, at the hands of a psychopathic druid.

"Ok, turn around," she motioned sharply at him. "Put your hands behind your back."

"You don't need to tie me up," Scott replied in disgust. "I won't fight you, I already agreed to be the sacrifice. Blood oath, remember?"

"That's not the point," Jennifer shook her head with impatience. "You are a sacrifice, the _final_ sacrifice, and I need to present you to the Nemeton as such. Now turn around."

Scott sighed heavily, before reluctantly turning around and putting his hands behind his back. He tried not to flinch as she roughly tied the thick ropes around his wrists, pulling them tightly so that there would be no chance of escape...at least for a human, or a werewolf without any powers.

"Good," Jennifer looked over her work approvingly. "Now lie down on the center of the Nemeton."

Scott walked slowly over and climbed onto the large stump somewhat awkwardly with his hands bound behind him, his feet dragging heavily even though he knew this was what he had signed up for.

Even though his sacrifice had been to save everyone he cared about, he still couldn't help but feel some remorse for the life he wouldn't get to live. No graduation, no chance of getting Allison back, no college adventures with Stiles...no chance of seeing anyone he loved ever again.

But he had made his choice, to save them from this fate, and he knew he'd give his own life a hundred times over if it saved the ones he loved.

This was the only way.

He laid down on the Nemeton, the hard, cold bark digging into his back. He could almost feel the power pulsating underneath him, as if the tree knew that he was the final piece in Jennifer's puzzle. He furiously blinked up at the darkening night sky, determined to hold back tears as Jennifer climbed onto the Nemeton next to him, holding the large dagger with ancient writing in one hand and the garrote to strangle him in the other. She pulled two more ropes across his body, from one side of the stump to the other, securing him firmly against the Nemeton.

The lunar eclipse was about to begin, and Jennifer stood over him, pure power and craziness radiating about her.

"Scott, I thank you for your sacrifice," she smiled sadistically down at him. "You made the right choice."

No sooner than the words had left her mouth then total darkness fell over the woods as the lunar eclipse began, and Scott felt his powers fade away.

The last thing he saw was the moon disappearing into blackness, before Jennifer let out a wild yell of fury, echoing throughout the clearing as she raised her hand high above her head, the blade glinting in the disappearing moonlight.

And then she plunged the dagger directly into his heart.

* * *

Stiles awoke with a start, completely confused in the darkness of his room as he tried to figure out what had woken him up.

As his brain tried to clear through the fogginess of sleep, he realized it was his phone buzzing wildly across his night stand. He fumbled, uncoordinated, out of his covers to snatch it up, not even bothering to check the caller ID as he answered it.

"...'ello?" he mumbled sleepily into the phone.

There was no reply right at first, but he could definitely hear someone breathing heavily over the line, and it sounded like they were...crying?

"Hello? Who's there?" He tried again, wide awake now, but was met with no answer, just broken sniffles coming over the line.

Heartbeat speeding up with panic, Stiles quickly pulled the phone away from his ear, looking down to see who had called.

 _Lydia_.

"Lydia," he could barely keep his voice steady now, jumping up from his bed and clutching the phone to his ear, "Lydia, can you hear me? Are you ok?"

"...Stiles," her broken voice finally came over the phone, and it sounded hoarse, either from crying...or screaming.

Now Stiles was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, dread already sinking into the pit of his stomach, already knowing that he wouldn't like what Lydia was about to say.

"Lydia, what is it?" he shot back through the phone, his voice raising in panic. "Are you ok? What's going on?"

"Stiles, I had," she began, sounding completely shaken, "I had a dream, or a premonition, or something, I don't...I don't know..."

"Lydia," Stiles cut in, trying to slow his breathing with no success, "please, just tell me, I'm freaking out here. What was it?"

Lydia went silent again for a moment, sounding like she was trying to suppress a sob, and just when he thought he was about to lose his mind, she finally spoke.

"Stiles, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," she rambled, sounding completely lost.

"...why?" he asked with pure dread, holding his breath as Lydia replied brokenly.

"Stiles...it's Scott."

* * *

 **TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**WOW guys I am sooo sorry about the delay on this one! I would blame it all on the fact that I was planning a trip to Vegas, then went on said trip to Vegas, and** _ **then**_ **had to recover from the trip to Vegas...but that's just a lame excuse, so please accept this update as my sincerest apology!**

 **Also, THANK YOU for all of the amazing reviews that last chap got, it truly inspired me to keep going with this! Your feedback is everything (especially since this is a new fandom to write for for me). Special thanks to Freedom to Rarity, Unknown98, KorrohShipper, GFM, Izi Wilson, Fanofeverything101 (got your message too, thank you!), Suna-Puppet-Master, and FlyAway98 for all your support.**

 **Ok, guys definite tissue warning for this chapter...it's going to hurt. I think you can probably guess from the story summary** _ **what**_ **is going to happen this chapter, but I'll throw a more specific warning at the bottom if anyone needs that too. (Or message me). I swear I love these characters, really...**

 **Happy reading?**

 **Fictional**

* * *

"Damn it Scott, answer your phone!" Stiles shouted in a mixture of fear and frustration as he threw his cell phone carelessly on the bed after getting Scott's voicemail for the fifth time.

 _He's sleeping. That's why he's not answering. He's at home asleep and he's fine and that's why he's not answering..._

Stiles kept telling himself that because he couldn't accept any other scenario. Lydia was wrong about this one, she _had_ to be.

He almost fell over as he hurriedly pulled on a pair of jeans in the darkness of his room, rushing over to grab his phone again as a sudden thought struck him through the panic and exhaustion currently slowing his normally sharp mind.

He frantically dialed another number with shaking fingers, swearing internally as the other line just kept ringing.

"Come on, come on," Stiles muttered to himself, whole body shaking with anxiety and nervousness.

"...this had better be good if you're calling me at this hour," Isaac's voice finally mumbled over the phone, laced with sleep and irritation.

Normally Stiles would have shot back a snarky response, but there wasn't time for that now. "Isaac, wake up! Scott's in trouble."

Isaac's demeanor instantly changed, and Stiles could hear rustling over the other end of the line. "What? What are you talking about..."

"Are you at home?" Stiles cut him off breathlessly. "Go check and see if Scott's in his room, he isn't answering his phone."

"Uh, no, I'm not," the sheepishness in Isaac's voice was evident over the phone. "I, uh, feel asleep at Allison's."

"Ok, well get up, and wake up Allison, and meet me at Scott's," Stiles demanded into the phone as he grabbed his coat. "Now!"

"Yeah, ok," Isaac replied without hesitation. "We're coming. But Stiles, what the hell is going on?"

Stiles swallowed hard, pushing down the start of a panic attack with every ounce of strength he had. "I don't know yet...but we have to find Scott."

* * *

Scott wasn't there.

They all gathered in his bedroom, while Melissa was still at work, no idea that Scott's life might be in mortal danger.

His cell phone lay in the center of his bed, a small piece of paper folder neatly underneath it.

Stiles almost couldn't bring himself to read it, his stomach in knots as he kept replaying Lydia's words over and over in his mind.

She stood next to him now, slightly shaking, hugging her arms tightly around herself as she prayed that whatever feeling or vision she had had about Scott was wrong.

None of them knew what they would do if she was right.

 _But Lydia was always right..._

With a deep breath, Stiles reached down and picked up Scott's cell phone and the note underneath. But his nerves were already shot, his hands shaking too badly, that his trembling fingers dropped both the note and the phone to the bedroom floor with a loud clang.

Stiles looked at the rest of them helplessly. "Uh, can someone else read it?" he ran a shaking hand through his hair. "I can't, I can't do it..."

"I will," Allison replied quietly from where she stood next to Isaac, unconsciously gripping his arm like a lifeline, her voice steady but simultaneously full of fear. Her normally strong and steady hands were also trembling ever so slightly as knelt down and picked the note up from the floor. With a deep breath, she unfolded the paper, the crinkling sounding as loud as gunshots to the four teens in the room.

"It says," Allison stared at it for a moment before looking back up at them, "it just says _I'm sorry_."

"What?" Stiles croaked, as they all crowded over her shoulder to read the final note that Scott had left them.

 _I'm sorry_ was scrawled in Scott's unmistakable handwriting.

"I'm sorry?" Isaac asked in confusion as they all looked at each other. "Sorry for what?"

"He knew something was going to happen tonight," Lydia mused quietly, her voice still raw. "He knew, and that's _why_ I sensed it when I left earlier."

"He knew he was going to do something stupid," Stiles clenched his jaw in a mixture of both anger and fear. "And he didn't want us to know, so he left us this note in case he didn't make it back." He grabbed the note from Allison then, staring at it for a moment before crumpling up the paper in his hand and throwing it angrily across the room. "I knew something was wrong, that he wasn't telling me something. I should have stopped him..."

"It's not your fault, Stiles," Allison shook her head. "We all knew something was off with him tonight, we _all_ should have tried harder to figure out what it was."

"He tried to convince us that everything was ok," Isaac added mournfully. "And we believed him."

Breathing heavily, Stiles turned to look back at the others. "That's because he _knew_ he was going to go try to take Jennifer on by himself tonight, and he told us not to get involved because he didn't want us to get hurt."

"Wait, how do we _know_ that's what he did?" Isaac asked curiously, looking between him and Lydia. Lydia just shook her head, indicating that is wasn't her. She only felt death encroaching upon Scott, but she didn't know the where or how yet. "We have no idea where he is, maybe that's not it."

"He's right," Allison agreed with Stiles. "That's exactly what Scott would do. And he tried to throw us off, convince us not to do anything tonight, so that he could face Jennifer and the Alpha Pack on his own without us getting in the way."

"So we have to find him," Stiles' voice was rising with urgency, "we have to find him _now_." He paused, looking at Lydia with tear-filled eyes. "Before it's too late."

"Lydia, do you know where Scott is? Could you feel where he was? Do you sense him now?" Allison asked her, squeezing her hand sympathetically at the broken look on her face. They all knew that Lydia was blaming herself for not being able to tell something was going to happen to Scott sooner...or for not trusting her instincts earlier when she _had_ sensed something about Scott when she had been leaving Stiles' room. Her powers were still new and incredibly difficult for them to understand, least of all her.

"No, no, I don't know," Lydia shook her head, blinking back tears of frustration. "I just _felt_ him dying...I don't know how else to explain it."

"Well, he's not. He's not...dead," Stiles forced out the word, unable to even _think_ about it being too late to save his best friend, "but we have to find him!"

"Wait," Lydia froze suddenly, a feeling so strong washing over her that she almost fell to the floor of Scott's room. She looked down at the floor, focusing in on Scott's cell phone. She gingerly knelt down and picked up the phone, staring at it intently, even though it was currently off. "Wait, I can hear them..."

Shaking slightly, Lydia put the dead cell phone up to her ear, as the rest of them looked on, desperately wishing they could hear what only Lydia could. She held the phone tightly, knuckles turning white, as she listened to voices from beyond their reach trying to give them clues to save their friend.

To save Scott.

Suddenly, Lydia swayed dangerously, knees buckling as she began to collapse towards the floor.

"Whoa, Lydia!" Stiles grabbed her collapsing form, as he and Isaac helped her to the bed, setting her down gently as Allison knelt down in front of her with worried eyes.

She stared at them all blankly for a moment, her mind elsewhere, listening to voices they couldn't possibly hear, the cell phone still pressed tightly against her ear. The three friends had no choice but to helplessly wait for her to come back to them.

"Lydia," Allison tried gently to bring her friend out of her trance-like state, "Lydia, can you hear me?"

Lydia's whole body jumped suddenly as she came back to herself, looking at the three of them with wide eyes, the cell phone dropping carelessly to her lap.

"Lydia, what is it? What did you hear?" Stiles asked urgently, squeezing her hand tightly without even realizing it.

"I know," she rasped as she looked back at them with desperation. "I know where Scott is!"

"Where? Where is _he_?!" Stiles' voiced cracked. He was almost begging now, losing his composure and no longer caring.

She bit her lip before she answered, giving them a pained look.

"The Nemeton."

* * *

"You and Lydia take this way," Stiles pointed into the darkness of the Beacon Hills Preserve, "and Isaac and I will go this way."

"Got it," Allison said, sheathing one of her knives. Although they had a general idea of where the Nemeton was from when they had rescued their parents, it was still a little fuzzy, and the Preserve at night was incredibly disorienting.

However, they figured between Lydia's supernatural draw to the Nemeton and Isaac's werewolf senses, they could cover more ground more quickly if they split up.

They just hoped they wouldn't run into the any darachs or alphas while they were at it.

"We're going to find him," Allison added over her shoulder as her and Lydia started off.

Stiles smiled grimly, just nodding his head in agreement.

He hoped she was right.

"C'mon, this way," Isaac motioned with his head, and Stiles took off in a dead sprint after him, trying his best to keep up with the werewolf in front of him.

They weaved through the woods, hoping for something familiar, but in the darkness, all the trees looked exactly the same.

The only thing on their side was the full moon lighting their way, casting eerie shadows down on them between the trees.

"Are you catching anything?" Stiles called out breathlessly as Issac came to a stop, sniffing the air for any sign of Scott's scent.

Isaac didn't reply for a moment, still trying to catch a sign, before shaking his head. "No. Not yet."

"Well then let's keep moving," Stiles demanded, pushing ahead of the werewolf into the darkness. Isaac easily jogged up beside him, and they kept up their grueling pace into the woods. Stiles knew he was running on pure adrenaline at this point, but he didn't care.

They had to find Scott. They _had_ to.

After what felt like hours later but was really only minutes, Isaac came to an abrupt halt again, Stiles running into him with a loud "oof!" as he hadn't been prepared for him to stop again.

"Little warning would have been nice," Stiles muttered under his breath as he steadied himself, before he caught sight of Isaac's face.

His eyes were glowing yellow, but the pained look on his face filled Stiles' heart with dread.

"What?" he asked softly, almost afraid to hear the answer. "What is it?"

Isaac turned to look at him, swallowing thickly as his eyes faded back to human. "I smell blood, a lot of it," he finally replied. "...it's Scott's."

Stiles felt his heart plummet into his stomach. Scott was strong though, Scott could _heal_ , so that didn't mean anything...

"C'mon," Isaac urgently brought him out of his thoughts. "It's this way!"

Isaac took off in a dead sprint further into the woods, Stiles hot on his heels, heart pounding from both exertion and fear.

"Come on, Scott," he muttered breathlessly to himself as they ran, faster and faster, "just hang on, we're almost there..."

And suddenly, they were. They crashed through the edge of a clearing, coming to a stop as they caught their breath. There, glaring almost mockingly at them in the moonlight, was the large stump of the Nemeton right in front of them.

But neither of them paid much attention to that. They were both drawn to the motionless body lying on top of the stump. They both knew who it was.

"Oh God," Stiles heard himself say, as he took off in a run towards the Nemeton now, Isaac right behind him. "Scott!" he screamed, his voice echoing back to him in the somber silence of the darkness. "Scott!"

Stiles reached the Nemeton in record time, and flung himself up on top of it, landing with a thud on his knees on the hard wood, sliding in the slick blood covering the stump.

There was so much blood.

"Scott!" Stiles called out again, looking down in horror at his best friend, hoping against all impossible hope that they weren't too late.

Scott lay completely pale and motionless on top of the stump, thick ropes tied over him and his hands still bound behind him. He was moving, wasn't responding to Stiles' frantic yells of his name...wasn't breathing. His blood coated the entire top of the stump, Stiles could barely believe that one body could hold that much...

"No no no no _no_ ," Stiles chanted frantically, pulling helplessly at the ropes to no avail. He wouldn't be able to break them. "Scott, come on, can you hear me?" He reached down and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him roughly. Scott didn't move, didn't do anything at all.

"Scott, come on, wake up!" he pulled desperately again at the ropes, trying not to throw up as his hands slipped in Scott's blood coating them. It was _everywhere_.

He felt Isaac collapse next to him then on the stump, barely aware that he was still there. He spared a desperate look over at him, pulling frantically at the ropes keeping Scott tied to the Nemeton. "Isaac, come on, help me out here!"

Isaac just stared numbly at Scott's motionless form, as if he hadn't heard him.

"Isaac!" Stiles all but screamed in his face, jolting him back to reality, "Isaac, get the ropes!"

"...Stiles," he finally replied, his voice broken, "Stiles, it's too late..."

"No, no, NO!" Stiles shot back at him, not ready to believe it, refusing to accept that reality. "Don't say it, just don't say it damn it! Just get the ropes off of him! Now!"

Isaac nodded slowly, with a deep sigh, before gathering himself and popping out his claws. Moments later, the ropes fell away, and Scott's hands were untied. Stiles grabbed him, propping him up across his lap, and shaking him urgently again. His eyes finally fell to the large wound in Scott's chest, right over his heart, and the obvious and familiar stranglulation marks on his neck, but his mind refused to process them, as he continued to try and wake him up against all hope.

Scott didn't move, didn't respond, didn't do anything at all, his head lolling lifelessly to the side until Stiles grabbed it between his hands, desperately trying to force Scott to open his eyes and look at him. He almost drew back in surprise at how unnaturally cold and clammy Scott's skin felt, because since Scott had become a werewolf, he had always run _hot_ , not cold. This wasn't right this wasn't _right..._

"Scotty, come on, you have to wake up!" Stiles was begging now, praying to gods he wasn't even sure he believed in to spare his friend. "Please Scott, you have to open your eyes and look at me, ok? You have to wake up!"

Scott's eyes remained closed, his chest still and unmoving, his heart not beating, and Stiles was almost certain his own heart was going to stop too.

"Stiles..." Isaac choked out, and Stiles had almost forgotten he was still there. "Stiles, it's, it's no use...he's gone."

Stiles just ignored him, didn't have the energy or the fight to respond to him right now, using every last thread of hope he had to will Scott back to life, not caring how crazy or irrational it was.

"Just open your eyes, you have to open your eyes now, Scott!" he tried again, gripping his pale face between his hands, searching his still features desperately for any sign of life.

There was none, and the enormity of what they had all lost was starting to crash down on top of Stiles, crushing him under its weight.

"Scott, come on man, please don't do this," Stiles was barely aware that he was crying now, tears streaming freely down his cheeks. He made no move to brush them away. "Don't do this, not like this, not like _this..."_ his voice cracked on the last word, the world dangerously spinning now as reality was starting to sink in.

"Please, Scott, _please,"_ Stiles was somewhere between begging and sobbing now, "don't leave us, we all need you, _I_ need you...please come back, _come back..."_

Scott didn't move despite his desperate pleas, just remained still and lifeless in his arms, eyes closed and peaceful.

But Stiles knew he wasn't at peace, he couldn't be, Scott would have fought with everything he had to get back to them, wouldn't have just given up...would he?

"Scott!" suddenly another voice echoed across the clearing, and Stiles barely had the energy to look up to see Allison and Lydia sprinting towards them.

He could tell from the look of desperation on Allison's face and the look of defeat on Lydia's that they already knew.

They were too late.

"Scott!" Allison called out again, and she fell to her knees on the bloody stump of the Nemeton, looking down at Scott's lifeless form in horror before looking up to meet Stiles' pained gaze with her own.

"Scott, no, no, _no,"_ her voice cracked, as she reached a shaking hand to smooth back Scott's hair from his forehead, almost recoiling as she felt the coldness of his skin. "No, Scott, no..."

"We were too late," Lydia's broken voice came from next to Isaac. "We were too late..."

"There's nothing we could have done," Isaac sniffed, brushing tears away from his face to no avail as more just replaced them. "We couldn't have saved him..."

Stiles and Allison didn't respond, just looking despondently down at the boy they had both loved, trying to figure out how they were going to live in a world without him in it.

"Why, Scott? Why would you do this?" Allison was crying openly now, her whole body shaking as she continued to mindlessly run her hands through his hair. Stiles continued to just grip his body tightly against him, unable to stop the flow of tears that he was certain were _never_ going to stop.

Scott was _gone._ His best friend, his brother, the one person he knew better than anyone in the world, the one person who had been by his side through all the incredible ups and downs of their crazy and sometimes painful lives, the person he would always risk his life for and who had also risked his life for him, who had _given_ his life for them all...

Scott was _dead._

Stiles didn't know how the rest of the were supposed to live when the one person who had brought them all together was gone.

"He sacrificed himself," Lydia's hoarse voice interrupted the painful sounds of them all crying, as she realized what had really happened. "Scott sacrificed himself to save your parents and protect all of us."

"He must have made a deal," Allison choked out around her tears, unable to tear her eyes away from his still, unmoving face, "a deal with Jennifer. Him for our parents instead. That's how he found the Nemeton and saved them."

"Because he's a True Alpha," the striking realization hit Stiles like a freight train. "He's a True Alpha _and_ a guardian...our guardian...and that's what she needed to finish the sacrifices."

"With that kind of power...Jennifer would be unstoppable," Isaac added with a mixture of grief and anger. "That's why she wanted him."

The realization of what Scott had done for them made his death even _more_ painful. They had all known that something was wrong, that he was hiding something...but they couldn't have prepared themselves for _this_ being what Scott had been planning to do all along.

"He knew," Stiles managed between his tears, "damn it he _knew_ what he was going to do tonight when we kept asking him what was wrong, what was going on. He knew the whole time that he was going to _sacrifice_ himself!"

"He was saying goodbye..." Allison realized suddenly, her last conversation with Scott flooding back to her mind with vivid detail. "He knew he was going to..." she couldn't bring herself to say the words. "He was saying goodbye to all of us."

She grabbed Scott's face between her hands then, where he still lay across Stiles' lap, and closing her eyes against her tears, leaned down to kiss him one last time.

Once his cold lips brushed against hers, it was too much, it was _too_ real that he was gone, really gone, and Allison broke down into heart wrenching sobs, falling against his bloodied chest. "Scott... _no_..."

"Oh God, this can't be happening..." Stiles was sobbing again now, looking desperately up at Issac and Lydia before looking back down at Scott. "This can't be real this can't be _real_..."

But it was. Scott was really gone, and they couldn't save him. They couldn't bring him back.

"We need call your dad, Stiles," Lydia's broken voice reached him through the haze of tears, and he realized she was next to him now, hugging his shoulders tightly in a semblance of comfort. "We need to tell him what happened, so we can figure out how to..." she trailed off, not needing to finish.

They all knew she meant how they were ever going to explain what happened to Scott to the rest of the world.

"And yours," Isaac whispered between his tears, laying a gentle hand on Allison's shaking shoulders from where she was still crying over Scott. "We need to tell Argent as well."

"Oh God, and Melissa..." Stiles croaked between sobs, his voice raw from crying. "Someone needs to tells Scott's mom..."

There was a heavy silence as they all thought about how devastated Melissa would be when she learned about Scott's fate.

"I can, I can do it," Isaac sniffled, reaching slowly for his phone. "They have to know what happened..."

"This can't be it, this can't just be it!" Stiles choked out through his tears, struggling between grief and anger at Scott for being so careless with his own life, and anger at himself for not being able to stop him. "He can't just _die_ like this, he can't just be gone!"

"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," Lydia cried against his shoulder, "but there's nothing we can do. People don't just come back from the dead, Stiles." She paused, looking down at Scott as more tears streamed down her face. "Not even Scott."

Allison slowly sat up, falling into Issac's side, unable to support herself anymore, blood and tears streaking her face. "Scott was right...there's no hope..."

Those painful words from when Scott had nearly killed himself came flooding back to Stiles, triggering something inside him that he thought had died with Scott.

"No, no, _no!"_ Stiles looked up at them wildly now, as he desperately clung to the last threads of hope he could grab on to. "We can't give up on Scott, we _won't_ give up on him. He would never give up on us."

"Stiles," Isaac looked at him sympathetically, "there's nothing we can do..."

"Yes, yes there is," Stiles knew he sounded insane now, but he didn't care. It didn't matter, nothing else mattered if there was a way to still save Scott.

"Don't call our parents," he told Isaac, who had just started to dial the Sheriff.

"Stiles, we have to tell them," Lydia tried to reason with him gently, but Stiles just shook his head vehemently, blinking back tears as a small glimmer of hope emerged, and he held on to it desperately, knowing he would completely break without it.

"Isaac," he looked at him with a renewed desperation, "call Deaton."

* * *

 **Warning: Major Character Death (poor Scotty)**

 _TBC_


	4. Chapter 4

**Wow, this update is way overdue (I got a little distracted by my Scott/Malia fics), but some recent interest in this story got me interested again, so here we are!**

 **And thanks of course to Bob, Bluecandifloss, Guest, Guest, SamReid, Guest, KristyB26, Fuinn13, Guest, KorrohShipper, CountAlucard666, and FlyAway98 for their reviews of the last chapter! Hope you are still reading.**

 **Lots more angst here before the plot starts kicking up next chapter...**

* * *

The drive to the animal clinic was the longest drive of Stiles' life.

He didn't remember the drive itself, really, just how it felt like no matter how fast he drove or how many traffic laws he broke, it still wasn't fast enough.

After a hurried phone call with Deaton to explain what had happened, Stiles and Isaac had carefully carried Scott out of the woods and back to Stiles' jeep.

Scott lay across the backseat now, his still, lifeless body strewn halfway across Isaac's lap and his head cradled gently in Allison's. Stiles glanced up briefly in the rearview mirror, as he blew threw yet another stop sign, to see the silent tears still rolling steadily down Allison's face. She didn't even notice him looking at her, because she was blankly staring down at Scott's motionless face, looking completely broken as she kept mindlessly running her hands through his hair, unable to hide the shaking of her normally steady hands any longer.

"Stiles," Lydia's hoarse voice prodded him gently out of his thoughts as he veered precariously around another corner, the tires squealing on the pavement, "Stiles, what do you..."

She trialed off with a shake of her head, at a loss for words, and Stiles glanced briefly over at her in the passenger's seat before turning his eyes back to the road, trying not to be unreasonably angry at the sympathetic look on her face. He knew that they all thought he had lost his mind, and maybe he had, but holding his dead best friend in his arms had broken something inside of him. Stiles knew that if they couldn't save him, that if they had really lost Scott for good, then he was never going to be the same.

Nothing would.

When Lydia didn't continue, he glanced at her again, gripping his steering wheel tightly until his knuckles turned white as he tried not to think about the fact that Scott was currently _dead_ in his back seat. His voice was strained when he spoke. "...yeah?"

Lydia opened and closed her mouth hesitantly, still uncharacteristically fumbling for the words, "What do you think that Deaton..."

"What? What do I think that Deaton can do to bring Scott back?" Stiles finished for her, his heart clenching painfully at the words. The honest truth was, he didn't really _know_ , but he was clinging to an instinct, a feeling, that there was a way to bring Scott back from the throes of death. He was desperately holding on to those last threads of hope, hope that Deaton could do something, could _save_ Scott, could bring him back, because that hope was all that was keeping him from falling apart.

Lydia nodded slowly, sniffling as she drew in a deep breath to steady herself. "Yes."

He exhaled heavily, with a death grip still on the steering wheel, his words hollow. "I don't, I don't know yet, exactly...but he can help. He _can_."

Stiles wished he sounded steadier and more confident, but he knew, they all knew, how crazy it sounded, how insane of an idea it was. But it was all they had.

Lydia just nodded again, and reached over to squeeze one of his hands on the steering wheel, because there wasn't anything else she could say. Allison and Isaac remained deathly quiet in the backseat, holding Scott's lifeless body across them, unable to voice any argument to Stiles' irrational hope because all the fight had already been taken out of them.

And Stiles knew that if they couldn't save Scott, if there wasn't a way to bring him back...then he wouldn't have any fight left either.

* * *

Stiles skidded the jeep to a haphazard stop behind the clinic's back doors, throwing open his door before he even had the jeep fully in park. He yanked back the front seat to make room for Allison to crawl out, so they could get to Scott.

Allison moved quickly, her movements still graceful and controlled from her training as a hunter, but there was something different about them now, more leaden and heavy then she normally moved. She gingerly slid out from under Scott's head, laying his head down on the seat tenderly, as if she was afraid she could somehow hurt him more.

Stiles blinked back more tears furiously at the gesture, because Scott wasn't even awake, wasn't _alive_ to see how much Allison still really cared about him, and that was all Scott had been waiting for since they'd been broken up.

Isaac started to climb out of the backseat, scooping Scott up in his arms, trying not to jostle him too much in the cramped space without much success.

"Hey! Careful, careful!" Stiles yelled as Isaac handed Scott over to him through the door, before jumping out and helping Stiles catch his dead weight.

"Stiles," Isaac sighed heavily, as he helped adjust Scott between them, giving him a sympathetic look, "he doesn't, I mean, he can't feel any..."

"Isaac, don't. Just _don't_ ," Stiles warned dangerously, flashing him a dark look, because he wasn't in the mood to argue with the other werewolf anymore. If he wasn't going to be any help, if he wasn't going to believe that they could save Scott, then Stiles was going to remove him from the situation. Immediately.

Luckily, Isaac seemed to get the hint, and fell silent, steeling himself as he followed Stiles through the doors of the clinic as they carried Scott between them.

Deaton wasn't there yet, because he had been somewhere outside of Beacon Hills when they'd called, doing God knew what, but he'd promised he'd meet them back at the clinic as soon as he could and do everything he could to help Scott.

"Over here! Put him over here!" Stiles ordered as they came inside, and Allison and Lydia quickly cleared off one of the sterile metal tables in the back room, bottles and containers crashing to the floor with a loud clang. Stiles and Isaac carefully laid Scott out on the table, as Lydia hit the switch on the wall, flooding the dark room with light.

It was _so_ much worse in the light.

Out in the darkness of the woods, they had been able to see how bad the damage was, what Jennifer had done to Scott, the killing blow to his heart that had taken his life...but here, under the harsh, bright lights of the clinic, it was so much worse.

Because now Scott _really_ looked dead. He was.

It felt like a literal hammer to his chest at the sight. Stiles couldn't breathe. Seeing him like this, seeing his _brother_ like this, was more painful than anything he ever could have imagined.

Scott's skin was pale and ashen, all traces of color and warmth gone, both from blood loss and death. Now, under the brightness of the lights, they could see just how bad his wound was through the tattered remains of his shirt. It was large, and deep, gaping directly over his heart, and Stiles was afraid to come too close and see that maybe she had actually taken his heart, and given _that_ as a sacrifice to the Nemeton.

And he was so _so_ still, so quiet, so unlike how Scott was now, because he was always on the move, either running to save the lives of someone else or running for his own life, and seeing him like this didn't even make _sense_.

His chest was still, covered in blood and unmoving, no signs of life to be found, and even before he'd been a werewolf, he'd had asthma, and his chest had always been moving, always been breathing, always been fighting...

And now there was nothing. Nothing at all.

Stiles was brought out of his spiraling thoughts as he stood next to the table, just staring at Scott, when Allison's voice broke through the haze.

"...where's Deaton?" Her voice was small, broken, so unlike the fierce and determined girl she was. The four of them inched slowly closer to the table, closer to Scott's body, as if they were afraid to get too close. Lydia and Stiles hovered on one side, Allison and Isaac on the other, staring hopelessly down at their fallen friend.

"He's coming," Stiles answered slowly, still unable to tear his gaze away from Scott on the table, fists balled up desperately at his sides to keep himself from having another panic attack, sucking in another deep breath. "He'll be here."

"Did he say," Isaac began carefully, not wanting to upset Stiles any further, "did he say if...he could help?"

Stiles didn't answer right away, clenching his jaw as another lone tear broke free and rolled slowly down his cheek. "He just said to bring Scott here."

"He'll be here soon," Lydia added soothingly, hesitantly reaching out and rubbing a hand up and down his back. Stiles was so broken that he barely noticed her touch.

"So what do we do until he gets here?" Allison asked hoarsely, looking completely lost, hugging herself in a valiant effort to hide the continual shaking of her hands. Isaac made a move to comfort her, but then thought the better of it and stepped away again.

Stiles sighed heavily, running a hand haggardly down his face. "I don't know."

"We wait," Lydia added gently, flinching when Stiles wheeled towards her, a crazed look suddenly crossing his face, because waiting was something he didn't know how to do, especially now.

"We can't just wait!" he waved his hands around in exasperation, his voice rising, "We can't just sit here, doing nothing, while Scott is..."

He trailed off, shaking his head and burying it in his hands, sucking in more deep breaths in an effort to regain his composure.

"Stiles," Isaac's voice was pained but uncharacteristically gentle from across the table, "Scott's already...gone. Waiting a little longer isn't going to change that."

Stiles snapped his head back up from his hands, glaring at him across the table. "And how would you know that, huh? How would you know that time isn't of the absolute essence here? Every minute that goes by could be one less chance of getting him back!"

"I know," Isaac glanced down, away from Stiles' anguished gaze, looking completely crestfallen, as if Stiles' words had broken him somehow. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that..."

"You're damn straight you shouldn't have," Stiles was losing control now, but it was easier to be angry than afraid, to be furious than drowning in grief, but Lydia suddenly cut him off, pulling his attention back to her.

"Stiles," she interjected, grabbing his arm and pulling her back to face her, "Isaac has a point. Only Deaton knows how to do all of this druid stuff," she waved her hands around at the several ingredients and books lining the shelves of the back room, "so the best thing we can do is wait for him to get here."

"That's just it, you don't understand!" Stiles protested, his voice suddenly cracking against his will as he looked desperately at all of them, "I _can't_. I can't just sit here, waiting, waiting for someone to save Scott. He's my best friend, he's more family to me than anyone besides my own father. After losing my mom, Scott and my dad are all I have left..."

He drew in a shuddering breath, trying to reign in his composure and failing miserably, swiping at his face half-heartedly as more tears came. "I can't just sit here and wait, Lydia. I can't lose him too. _I can't."_

"I know, Stiles...I know," she sighed, giving him a sad smile, reaching over to take his hand and squeeze reassuringly, "but you were the one who had hope all along that we could save him, remember? Don't give up now."

She paused, looking at him more resolutely through her own tears. "Don't give up hope."

He nodded slowly at her words, biting his lower lip because he didn't trust his own voice at the moment, just squeezing her hand back gratefully.

There was still time. There was still hope. He just had to keep believing that.

He dropped her hand then, and taking a deep breath to steel himself, walked closer to the table, until he was at the edge.

He was silent for a long moment, just staring down at the shell that used to be his best friend, trying to hold onto that hope that he could still be saved.

But it was hard, seeing Scott like this, to believe that there was any hope left at all.

"God, Scott," Stiles murmured hoarsely, "what the hell were you thinking?"

A heavy silence fell across the room as the other teens came closer to the table, closer to Scott, but none of them spoke except for Stiles. None of them felt like they had the right to intrude.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Stiles continued brokenly, even though he rationally knew that he wasn't going to get an answer, that Scott couldn't hear him, but he couldn't stop himself. "Why didn't you let us help?"

He paused, brushing away more tears to no avail, briefly wondering how he even had any tears left. "It's supposed to be you and me, remember? We're always supposed to have each others' backs. No matter what. Batman and Robin, right?"

He glanced up at his friends for a moment, before he continued, trying to hide the shaking of his voice. "And yeah, we've got a few more friends now, we have a _pack_ now...and you should have told us what was going on. We could have stopped Jennifer together. We could have _helped_ you, Scott."

The unsung _we could have saved you_ echoed in the room between all of them.

"How could you just go and do this? Don't you know how much we need you?" Stiles could hear his voice breaking, could hear Lydia sniffing next to him and the quiet sobs of Allison and Isaac across from him, but he couldn't stop, couldn't stop the words from coming now.

"Scott, man, we need you, more than you even know," he rasped, taking a deep breath and centering himself again, reaching over to grasp Scott's arm and trying not to recoil at how cold and stiff he felt. Stiles reached deep down for that determination, that hope, that they still had a chance.

"Which is why this isn't over. Which is why we're going to bring you back. Because we can't lose you, Scott. We _won't_."

Stiles snapped his head up to look at his friends, eyes burning with determination behind his tears. "We're bringing him back."

The others didn't reply, but he could see some renewed fight in all of their expressions as they looked back at him.

* * *

What was only moments later, but felt like an eternity, the front doors of the clinic burst open, and Deaton came rushing into the room, looking very uncharacteristically harried and ruffled. His arms were full of jars and packages that Stiles didn't recognize, but he assumed were for some sort of potion or magical mixture that only druids would know.

Deaton haphazardly dumped all of the contents onto a side table before coming to the center of the room, coming closer to the table where Scott lay.

As Deaton reached Scott's side, Stiles didn't miss the impassive mask the other man usually wore falter as he took in Scott's injuries. He staggered against the table for a moment, as if seeing Scott like this had completely tilted his world off its axis.

Deaton reached over and laid a gentle hand on Scott's forehead, still not saying anything to them for a long moment, closing his eyes painfully as he tried to compose himself. Until now, none of them had ever seen the vet anything less than cool and collected, even in the face of death and destruction.

But Scott dying had been the one wild card none of them had planned for.

After a moment, when he still didn't say anything, Stiles was about to open his mouth with impatience and urgency when Deaton finally spoke.

"...the Darach did this?" His eyes were still closed, his hand still on Scott's forehead, his other hand clenching the side of the table in a death grip.

"Yeah," Stiles replied hoarsely, "she made him a deal. Him as sacrifice in place of our parents."

"We didn't know," Allison added painfully, "that he was going to do that."

"We would've stopped him, if we had," Isaac added with a heavy sigh of remorse.

"I did, I _did_ sense something, with him, earlier," Lydia shook her head in grief and frustration, "but I didn't know that's what it was."

Deaton opened his eyes, exhaling heavily and taking a closer look at the wound on Scott's chest. If Stiles didn't know better, he could've sworn that there were tears in his eyes, but he wasn't sure.

He wasn't sure of anything anymore, really.

"A True Alpha, like Scott," Deaton said quietly, almost sounding faraway, wistful even, "is the ultimate sacrifice. With that kind of power added to the Nemeton, Jennifer wouldn't need anymore sacrifices to defeat the Alphas."

"We know that already," Stiles bit out, growing more impatient by the second, "but what we need to know now is how to save him! What do we need to do?"

Deaton was quiet for a long moment, and Stiles immediately hated the look on his face when he looked back at him.

"Stiles, if there was anything that I could do to bring him back..."

"Oh no. _No_ ," Stiles cut him off, voice rising in anger once again, and he'd never felt less in control of his emotions than he had in the past few hours, "don't even give us that bull. You know there's a way to save him, but there will be a cost, or consequences, or something, we get it. It doesn't matter! All that matters is saving him! Just tell us what to do!"

"Please, Deaton, if there's any way," Allison added to the plea, looking at him desperately. "We'll do whatever it takes, just tell us what to do to get him back."

"Trust me when I say," Deaton sighed heavily, looking defeated in a way they'd never seen him, "if there was a way to save Scott, I'd stop at nothing to do it, I promise you...I just don't know that there is. This isn't something you can just simply fix, or just read in one of the books."

"Don't do that," Stiles was clenching his fists at his sides angrily now, because he was sure he was about to break, the room spinning dangerously now, "don't tell us that there isn't a way to save him, because I know there is!"

"I think that you may overestimate my abilities," Deaton shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Stiles, but you just can't bring someone back from the dead."

"Oh yeah?" Stiles shot back in challenge, blinking back tears determinedly now, "then tell me, how did Peter Hale manage to come back from the dead months after being burned alive and having his throat slashed?"

He sensed Lydia startle next to him, painful memories washing over her no doubt about her unwilling role in the resurrection of the psycho werewolf, but he knew the moment she realized what his train of thought had been this whole time, why he still had hope.

 _If Peter Hale could come back from the dead, why couldn't Scott?_

Deaton was silent for a moment, his lips pursed in deep thought. "Peter Hale is an exception to the rule. He broke all of the rules, really, to overcome the natural order of things, even by supernatural standards."

"But he did, didn't he?" Stiles shot back in question. "Peter was able to use Lydia, and Derek, plus the moon, to bring himself back, so why shouldn't that apply to Scott? He's an Alpha now, a _True Alpha_ , and that has to count for something, right?"

"Yeah, doesn't that mean he'd be even stronger than Peter?" Allison stepped closer, and Stiles could hear the building hope in her voice now. "That he'd have an even better chance to overcome something like this?"

"And I have a stronger connection to him, too," Lydia added quickly, "Peter took control of my mind and forced me to help, but Scott is my friend. If he reached me somehow, or if I could reach him...maybe I could help pull him back."

"Maybe we all could," Isaac dared to sound hopeful finally, much to Stiles' approval, "I mean, maybe there's a way that all of us together could form a strong enough connection to bring him back."

Deaton looked at four sets of imploring eyes staring back at him, and he sighed again, shoulders slumping, as he put a hand to his chin. "Well, there may be one thing we could try..."

"I knew it!" Stiles snapped, because while he had learned to be patient with the vet's cryptic ways over the years, he had no tolerance when it came to Scott's life on the line, "I knew there was a way, damn it!"

"Let me finish," Deaton replied firmly, and Stiles quickly snapped his mouth shut at his ominous tone.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound good," Isaac mumbled under his breath.

"Given the severity of Scott's injuries," Deaton gestured at the wound on his chest, "I don't know if we'd even be able to bring him back, like this. It might not work."

"Doesn't matter," Stiles shook his head, swallowing thickly. "If there is even the smallest chance, we have to try. We _have_ to."

"I agree," Deaton nodded in agreement, "but that's not all. Even if I'm able to patch him up enough that we might be able to bring him back, we still have the Nemeton and the Darach to contend with."

"What do you mean?" Lydia asked curiously, trying to downplay the fear in her voice.

"Jennifer sacrificed Scott to the Nemeton, as a way to take his power and then use it as her own, through her connection to the Nemeton," Deaton explained seriously. "Essentially, that's where Scott's alpha spark is, our one last connection between him and the other side, our one chance to bring him back to the land of the living. If we try to take that power back, to take _him_ back, the Nemeton isn't going to let him go that easily. Either will Jennifer, as soon as she realizes what's happening."

"Are you saying," Stiles asked carefully, although he was afraid that he already knew the answer, "that not only do we have to worry about the Alphas, and Jennifer, but we might also have to fight off an ancient magical tree in order to save Scott?"

"This just keeps getting better and better," Isaac muttered between gritted teeth.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Deaton sighed heavily. "It won't be easy, and it certainly won't be safe."

"So how do we do that?" Allison asked urgently. "How do we bring him back? How do we get him back from the Nemeton?"

"That's where this gets even more dangerous," Deaton's tone was heavy, pained even.

"More dangerous?" Stiles echoed, before quickly shaking his head, his voice full of determination. "You know what, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how dangerous it is, or how crazy it is. We'll do it. We'll do _anything_. Please Deaton, just tell us how to save him. _Please_."

Lydia, Allison, and Isaac all nodded their heads simultaneously in agreement. They were determined to get Scott back, no matter what the cost.

"Okay," Deaton nodded, but there was still a heavy frown on his face. "I hope you all really mean that."

"We do," Allison reassured him, as the others quickly murmured their agreement.

"You know we'd do anything for him," Stiles added, a mix of grief and exasperation. "Just tell us what we need to do."

Deaton ran a hand haggardly down his face, before looking back at them. "How far are you willing to go to save Scott?"

"Whatever it takes," Stiles reassured him again, taking a step closer to the table. "Anything. _Please_. We'll do it."

"Well," Deaton gave them all a pained look, as a heavy silence fell over the room, "...are you willing to die for him?"


End file.
